EP. 127 Beyond the Dashboard: Metrics That Actually Drive Business Growth w/ Cody Wittick @ Kynship

Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhart welcome Cody Wittick, co-founder and co-CEO of Kynship, to discuss the evolving landscape of e-commerce marketing. They dive into the pitfalls of over reliance on ROAS metrics, the importance of cohort data, and why single-channel agencies need to pivot or perish. The trio shares insights on the future of agencies, the impact of AI on marketing, and why "ugly ads" might be the key to driving business forward. Cody challenges conventional wisdom on attribution tools and offers a fresh perspective on setting realistic business goals.

Follow Cody Wittick and Kynship on social media for more insights into e-commerce growth strategies and marketing trends.

Cody Wittick Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codywittick?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Kynship Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kynshipco?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Please connect with Trevor on social media. You can find him anywhere @thetrevorcrump

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
People get lost in the metrics and the numbers all
the time, but single channelagencies need to either grow,
expand and pivot or you will bedead.
Because if you don't understandthe full picture like the days
of I can look and make yourFacebook dashboard look as sexy
as possible are just gone.
Like you just need to be ableto understand how that's

(00:21):
affecting the whole ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yo, what's going on everybody?
Welcome to the UnstoppableMarketer Podcast.
With me, as always, is myco-host, business partner, Mark
Goldhart.
How are you, mark?
Great Welcome.
Thank you, sir.
Finally cut my hair, so youbrought your dog to the office.
I thought you were going tobring him to the podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
I should have, but we have a guest today.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
We do have a guest and we have a bunch of nice
cameras.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'm a dog person, but I'm not like.
A dog is a person.
Person.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
That's a rude statement to some people.
Some people can be mad aboutthat.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
I am my dog's master.
I'm not his parent, mark'sgetting political again.
Speaking of hey, it's okay, ifyou view your dog, you can do
you.
That's just me Trying to backout of it.
We have a guest.
My dog is, for sure my pet.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
We have a guest today , and this guest is, so we have
officially Two time.
Yeah, a two time guest.
We've only done this one othertime.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Who is that so?

Speaker 3 (01:24):
you were our second two-time guest.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
It was London Lazerson.
You commented on one of his.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Oh, the other day.
You just told my line aboutseeding that's fine.
Was that your?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
line Sour Boss, final , final.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Sour Final Boss Sour.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I'm dyslexic, london Lazerson, you didn't steal
anything.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
It's not trademarked.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, Cody thinks that he invented products eating
.
Anyways, we got Cody Winnickhere.
He is the he productized it.
The co-founder, co-ceo ofKinship, which is our biggest
competitor, why we have him onthe podcast to promote his
business.
We don't know.
Just kidding, welcome dude, howare you?

(02:07):
I hope that's never the case,you know that's good man, that's
the beauty about agency work iswhat's funny in the brand, in
the brand side of things, brandscannot be friends with each
other, even even though theyshould, when they're competing,
when they're quote unquotecompetition, right, like,
especially in utah, bro, likeutah, we did a whole episode on
this like is the most petty.

(02:28):
When it comes to like, oh,you're selling a bag, then you
are my mortal enemy, right,whereas, like in the agency
world, and maybe it's because,like you can only manage so many
clients, yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
When there's.
When there's 30,.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
You know, when there's I don't know how many
e-commerce companies out there,hundreds of thousands, hundreds
you know like scaling, yeah, youknow you can only manage so
many of them, but but whenyou're talking about Fifty
thousand to one hundred thousandeligible e-commerce agencies
versus e-commerce companiesversus, like I'm selling bags to
what possibly could be ahundred million people, yeah,
like it, I I still think you'relike the ratios are the same ish

(03:12):
no, it's, it's.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
It's far more of a zero sum game on the agency side
.
That's why it's funny.
Yeah, it is like it's more of azero sum game on the agency
side than it is on the brandside, but the brand side.
For some reason, people have areally hard time working with
brands In the same category.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
In the same category.
Whereas agency.
I don't think I've ever oncedeemed you as competition Just
internally.
Yeah, just internally, I deemyou as Twitter competition
Cody's Twitter famous.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
No, what is Twitter famous Actually?
I don't deem you as Twittercompetition Cody's Twitter
famous.
No, what is Twitter famousActually?
I?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
don't deem that because I don't know how to do
it.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
No, I mean just the other day someone's like, oh, we
recommended Kinship to acompany and we're like, yeah,
they'll probably kill it for youguys.
Yeah, very true, we gave them athumbs up, it goes around,
comes around.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
We gave them a thumbs up on on it.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It was a, it's a, it was your, it was your worst
client that was uh that youhated working with and you're
like, yeah, go work with them.
Please go to kilt, you're right, they'll do.
They have this cost cap thingthat you're gonna love that's
true, yeah no, but yeah.
Um, we had cody on likeprobably a couple years ago.
Yeah, yeah, now seems like uh,and all we talked about was
influencers at the time.
It was a good, it was actuallya great podcast.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
That was a great podcast.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
It was a really good podcast and still would be great
, I think, today, like it wasn'tlike we were talking like hey,
go find an influencer, pay him20 grand to post.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Like we were talking about that.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
We were talking about seating.
I think that's when youinvented product.
He was talking about podcast.
No one has heard of that termbefore.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, I got to find that comment that he like I just
saw this like pop up that on myInstagram that said I've heard
this before or something likethat, something sarcastic, and I
just it's my love language.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
I think I just know I said I invented this or
something like that back to him.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
But, so anyways.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Welcome, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
He flew in from California just to be here with
us.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Thank you, that's why I got you a 32 ounce ice coffee
.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Mark doesn't drink coffee.
We asked Cody, what do you wantto drink?
And he's like I'll have acoffee.
And then he brought a big gulp.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Hey, he said surprise me.
That is true, he did and youdid surprise him.
You just look like a coffeedrinker.
Mission accomplished Prettymuch.
Hey, he said surprise me.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
That is true, he did, and you did surprise him and I
did surprise you, I think youjust looked like a coffee
drinker mission accomplished.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
I know, yeah, I do yeah yeah, you do kind of have
that look about you even the hattoday.
Yeah, like a little moremunchie.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Well, when I go to lunch with my buddies, you know,
I'm the one who probably lookslike, you know, maybe puffin on
the reefer and mmm partying mmm.
But I'm the one who probablylooks like you know, maybe
puffing on the reefer andpartying, but I'm like You're a
straight list guy.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Going home to three kids and Getting in bed at 9
o'clock, going to bed at like9.30.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
I'm not very different from you, so you know
Coffee's not a gateway drug.
Just so you know.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
No, no, no, it isn't but.
But don't drink big gulps isnot a gateway drug, just so you
know.
No, no, no, it isn't but.
But don't drink big gulps of it, but I don't look like a Don't
drink big.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, don't drink 64 ounces of coffee.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
I look maybe like more on the hipster drink coffee
in the morning, yeah.
Go enjoy a bowl at the beach atnight, yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Sound bath in the midday.
Sound bath, yeah, sound bathcircles.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
I'm a sound therapy guy.
Nice Put on that white noisewhen I'm trying to focus.
80 hertz is what they say.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, Welcome, cody, welcome, thank you.
All right, let's just do this.
We don't need to hear a tonabout you and your background,
because we don't care.
Because it's already happenedand nobody cares.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Put it in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Give us a little bit of background so somebody cares
about the, because this is whatwe want to do on the podcast
today.
You have three people who havetwo very unique experiences.
Number one all three of us havebeen on the brand side of eight
figure businesses.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Right, working to grow and scale, scaling them
from seven to eight.
All three of us have thatexperience.
We've all been brand owners.
And number three, we all owne-commerce company or, sorry, a
marketing agency that works withbrands from every different

(07:24):
kind of walk and industry.
So we are seeing the pitfalls,we're seeing the basics done
well, we're seeing how there arecertain things that are
becoming irrelevant that oncewere rare, very relevant, and I,
I think we kind of just all satdown like two seconds before
the podcast and Cody said whatare we talking about?

(07:45):
And we said let's just like.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Whatever we want to, let's just jam about John
Stockton.
Carmelo.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, yeah, we said the pick and roll.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
You know the pick and rolls of marketing.
What are the pick and rolls?
So anyway, okay, so I'vealready kind of given the
background, tell, tell us alittle bit about Kinship really
quickly.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
E-commerce growth agency.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Love it.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Done, that's it.
E-commerce growth agency.
I mean, I can tell you ourtaglines.
I'd love that your taglines.
Yeah, give us a tagline we sella system, not a set of services
.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
System, not services.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
System over services, love it.
What I mean by that is wedesign something that's backed
into your top line and bottomline goals, so we don't like
piecemeal out our services.
So it's not like common.
I just want to do influencerseating, which is kind of like
what we talked about, so it'skind of part of the core.

(08:39):
Obviously, there's a little bitof wiggle and waggle in there,
but yeah, so we have a set ofsystems.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
It includes financial forecasting, creative media
buying, um, and yeah, we'veexpanded a ton since we I was
last doing this virtually not inperson one of the things we
love most about kinship is likelike they share very similar
models that we share around,like Marrying finance to

(09:08):
marketing.
Yeah we're very, very similarin in how we, how we look at
things which is really nice.
So but yeah, all right, well,let's jump into it.
Hot takes what do you want?
Like, what's the first, what'shot?
Take number one I don't know.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
You have good hot takes, do I?

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Yeah.
You just think a little moreoutside the box.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
They're kind of like always in the moment, though, so
I'm like trying to think, but Ithink we could just start off
with what we're seeing, yeah,lately, and what seems to be
maybe a mental leap for a lot ofpeople that they haven't had to
take, is what's the, what isthe most important metric right?

(09:53):
A lot of companies are caughtup with ROAS, and we think ROAS
is fundamentally flawed.
Depending on your goal as acompany, it can be crucial if
you are trying to maintain quoteefficiency, if you're trying to
cash flow, it depends, butoverall, roas is just one

(10:17):
measure on your dashboard.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Can I add another metric to that as well, which is
CPA?
Yeah, CPA, yeah, CPA ROAS Twosides of the same coin yeah, so
do you want to give a rationalearound it, or do you want to
hear?

Speaker 3 (10:33):
you're just setting the scene I'm just setting the
scene, I just think.
I just think too many brandsare too focused on a row as
metric, do you guys see that?
Uh, yeah, when they're tryingto grow, when they say what
their goal is.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, I would say that it seems to be like this
marketing term of having a highROAS is like this marketing
promise land that you're tryingto get to.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Badge of honor.

Speaker 1 (10:57):
Yeah, and I would just say actually you want as
low as, and I would say AMER, soacquisition, mer, so NC ROAS is
another term that we use.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
But new customer amr.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Yeah, just focus on new customer revenue over ad
spend, um and.
But having as low as amr aspossible is actually the hack,
because I can just like, if wethink about ad auction dynamics,
if you're competing and tryingto go after a four and I'm just
going after a one, the one'sgonna win yeah, it's like all

(11:32):
day long.
So like we have a client rightnow.
Their target is a .18 AMER, solike by the time their
competitors come into theauction, it's like there's
nothing left for them to do, andcan I ask you a question?
Real quick?

Speaker 2 (11:47):
How come they can do that?

Speaker 1 (11:49):
Oh yeah, there's a lot of things.
Sure, they're an incrediblerepeat business.
They have a very low OPEX.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Are they subscription ?

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So obviously there's likedifferent business models, but
there's also other ways that youcan affect AMR, like being on
Amazon, for example, likechannel expansion, where meta is
incredibly incremental to theseother channels and you can
actually just track what'shappening across the entire
business.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
That's how we.
My other hot take is neverseparate Amazon from website.
Yeah, I think they're both.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
I mean separate it, but you they're both your store.
Yeah, yeah, track, yeah, Ithink they're both.
I mean separate it, but they'reboth your story tracks
separately.
You look at them the same likethey are.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
It it is.
There's nothing morefrustrating as a marketer when
an executive says, well, ouramazon on store is doing this
and it's like, okay, let me lookat your bid report and it's
just brand yeah but ourefficiency over here on dot com
it's like where do you think?

Speaker 2 (12:47):
people are fine like you're, not like an household
item they're searching for onamazon like, where do you think
they're coming from?
Yeah, especially if they'reunder like a hundred million
dollars.
Right, yeah, totally yeah, it'slike.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Oh, no like our amazon's doing this.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
It's like no, I don't know what you're talking about.
Yeah, yeah yeah it's like wesaw you launch amazon, your
store goes down 30 and that 30magically appears over an amazon
.
Like what do you think happened?

Speaker 1 (13:09):
they're just like nope, didn't happen so back to
your point on rose ismeaningless.
I mean, yeah, it's notmeaningful, just not the main,
it's not the metric of like, Iguess maybe five, ten years ago,
where it's like we're gonnahave seven rows and it's like,
well, one spend more money, uh,two, yeah, it's just not the,

(13:29):
the secret sauce anymore I wouldsay as low as target as
possible.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
You're just getting way more customers um and
outbidding your your competitorsyeah, I, to add to what you're
saying, I think one thing thatwe do, we we've, we have a
metric that we use a lot too.
So we will use the mer rightand the new customer efficiency,
but we'll pair that up withwhat we call a return on

(13:53):
contribution margin dollar,right, where you're looking, so
it helps you look at the bottomline, where it's bringing in all
the returning stuff as well.
So that's where what what youguys have probably done too is
the reason why you've deemedthat a 0.18 is okay is because
your return on contributionmargin dollar, which is just
really your profits on variableprofits right, like, as long as

(14:15):
that is above a one, somethingyou're successful, yeah.
You know, and so.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
I'm not suggesting a first order profitable brand is
needs to target a 0.18 like.
Obviously people get lost inthe metrics and the numbers all
the time, but um but the pointis you understand the?
benchmarks right like yeah, thisis why I think, actually,
single channel agencies need toeither grow, expand, expand and

(14:45):
pivot or you will be dead.
Um, because if you don'tunderstand the full picture,
like the days of, I can look andmake your Facebook dashboard
look as sexy as possible, um, orjust gone, like.
You just need to be able tounderstand how that's affecting
the whole ecosystem.
And that's where I thinkagencies like ours are
incredibly valuable, becausewe're in the trenches with, with

(15:06):
the clients yeah, for sure um,because to your point it's like,
okay, I could track even firstorder contribution margin, but
if, if these cohorts aren'tbehaving how we thought they
were, or it's trending downwardslike our amir target needs to
change.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
I think cohorts is actually one of the most
underrated reports that no oneever looks at.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
You are a cohort guy, you love talking cohorts.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
I think cohort data is one of the most important
dashboards that a brand shouldbe looking at.
That they never do, yeah,especially as you're growing
right Because what we've seen issometimes a brand will make a
huge mistake where they're goingto see again they.
They're focusing on CPA or newcustomer.
When I say CPA I mean, likeacquisition period, like so just

(15:57):
new customers and they'resaying, oh, it's going up.
And it's like, okay, well, let'slook at your geo report, let's
look at, like, what's happeningfor why it's going up.
Yeah, it's going up for now,yeah, but what happens over the
long term?
And like you'll see that as youenter in because a lot of
people get stuck geographicallybecause it's the pixel data and
like sometimes it's like alittle sticky and then sometimes

(16:17):
they'll start expanding outsideof it.
So now your first touch pointis ads and your last touch point
is ads.
So your customer acquisitioncosts are going to go way up.
But sometimes you'll see thoselifetime cohorts and it's like,
oh, your retention rate fromzero to one is 50 higher for
these people coming through nowand you want to just like pause.

(16:38):
Like you just, oh, no, I'mscared yeah it's like I think
you should always and it soundslike you guys do it's like if
you have your ear to the groundwith cohorts?
Yeah, it makes you, you can.
You can really almost predictthe future just by like zero to
one.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, for those cohorts and it's not just
cohorts in it's also forproducts like type of products
you're talking about cohorts,you know, in geographic regions,
but like you can also talkabout cohorts in months,
purchased, yeah right, you get a, get a ton of people so
seasonal.
Yeah, you get a ton of peoplewho like, hey, like we got Black
Friday coming up, let's dipspend in October, because
October generally efficiencyreally, really sucks.

(17:13):
And then if you look at Octobercohorts and you realize, like
actually the people who buy inOctober all come back.
But most people dip spend inOctober when they actually could
maybe be cranking well, theyshould be cranking it because
like should be not all.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
If you can get people to come back for your sale,
like, the best way to do that isthey actually especially,
especially if you're a productthat sells on black friday.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah, there's some brands that don't like problem
solution stuff that don't reallylike that's right it doesn't
mean a whole ton to them thatdoesn't necessarily need to
increase.
But yeah, I like cohort datatoo.
You love it though.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
I love cohort data so important.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
What's another overrated metric that you're
hearing clients talk a ton about?
Or are those the main ones?
Generally ROAS cost peracquisitions.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, the in-and-out account CPA that people still
get way too over-invested in.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Why do you think that is Historical?

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, it's just like habit I would say they can't get
their eyes off the ad account.
It's just really misleading.
So that's where, likeincrementality, like sometimes
it has to go so far to where wefund incrementality for them to
kind of just show.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Like and we do our own like linear regression
analysis and stuff like that toshow them but yeah,
in-out-of-account CPA, I wouldsay, is right up there.
It's like, well, it's this.
And they just can't Like wejust try to get our clients as
quickly as possible to stoplooking at dashboard at all.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Like look at your forecast In-platform to stop
looking at dashboard at all yeah, like look at your forecast
like in platform dashboard.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah, I
like that well, in fact we havean account that when we went
through the data forincrementality the two biggest
spenders, spenders and Quotebest CPAs in platform we pause
them and their sales the nextday went up 500%.

(19:10):
Well, I'm not saying that'sgoing to maintain, but Because
the incrementality on those twois horrible, right, it was just
like yeah, oh yeah, that's not.
that's not bringing you guys newcustomers.
Yeah right, yeah Well, here'sanother question seven-day click
.
One day view Seven-day click sothey click on only click.

(19:33):
I'm a big one day view guy.
I think I just optimized offone day views, just one day view
only just one day view only.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Yeah, one day view only, I love that love that man.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
All of our, all of our metrics will go up, baby.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
That's why people like us yeah, one day view only
definitely an old hack of agencyworld to make our numbers look
a lot better, right?

Speaker 2 (19:58):
that's like the uh, your your row.
As for branded terms in googleor that like that.
Like, oh yeah, we have a we're30, we have a 30 roi or roi or
whatever I know there'sarguments for it.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Uh, and I've even talked to like high up people
marketing on facebook and theymake pretty like convincing
arguments and honestly forkeeping one day view with yeah
to keeping one day view.
Our whole thought process islike we just want to train the
pixel on people that click andbuy, um, ultimately.
And then also we just want tolike when there's a ton of view

(20:33):
through attribution, it'susually because they have a ton
of organic demand or there's alot of cross attribution
happening and we just want thatout.
Um, we want it as close toShopify as possible.
So it just leads like when weaudit ad accounts, it just leads
to a lot of confusion forpeople.
So we're just like we're tryingto get it out seven day click,
one day click if it's like aimpulse buy.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
But do you like looking at 28 day click
attribution in in platform yeah,I actually love it.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah, no, we do that.
I mean, we do that, I know youcan't optimize off it, but
multiplier yeah you can look atit for sure.
I mean, that's what your adsare driving, right?
Yeah, it's like in a seven dayclick campaign.
If there's like a 20 lift overthe next 21, we should account
for that right ultimately, likethat's what we want to tire amr

(21:24):
target, too, as close to aspossible ultimately.
It's never perfect, especiallyif they're on Amazon or other
marketplaces, right?
No, amazon separate though.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Yeah, settle down settle down meta ads, do not it?
keep them going, keep themfiring, firing.
I agree I prefer 7-Day Click,but our approach is it tends to
be I don't want to say nuanced,it's just our approach is

(21:53):
sometimes we leave the one-dayview in and we'll A-B test and
then we're tracking this with.
Also, we'll just use a thirdparty like GA4 or just Shopify
for conversion rates, just tojudge by CPC to conversion rate
and like true cost peracquisition.
Sometimes we just see that theone day view learns faster.
So, like if you're starting low, but like the higher you get
with spend, I think seven dayclick becomes more crucial.

(22:16):
Yeah, that's what I found.
So I don't think it's a one.
So I think we're on the samepage.
Seven day click is superior.
But if you are doing seven dayclick, one day view, you have to
always have your attributionwindow column open to try to
figure out what the one day viewis actually doing Because, like

(22:38):
, if it's too high and it'staking too much credit, then
like you, just you got to getrid of it, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
Sometimes it's like so low that I guess it wouldn't
be that much of a problem.
But like also like highsubscription brands, like I've
seen this be a problem, wherethey're like their view through
is like two and so it's likedoubling their row as right.
It's like these are just goingin front of people that are
gonna buy anyways.
So like, let's not, let's justget this out.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Yeah, for sure.
What about I got another onethat's moving off topic.
Yeah, what about we're justhearing this one a lot right now
?
I'm trying to think the bestway to word this.
Ads, ad, creative, impactinghow people view someone's brand.
Meaning brands, ads must all beon brand on brand and beautiful

(23:32):
yeah, define on brand.
I can't well, the question isfor you.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
I mean, I would say if well, because we run cost
controls.
If it's spending, we're goingto say that it's on brand.
That's kind of like.
Why, though?
The most basic explain that uh,cost controls it's, it's the
bid is the governor of yourspend, not the budget?
So if it's entering into theauction and it's spending, that

(24:01):
means it's over a seven-dayclick Cost controls.
I mean this gets into thedifference of different types of
cost controls?
Yeah, it's working.
I mean, even if you're runninghighest volume, meta will tell
you spend is the leadingindicator of future performance.
Leading indicator of futureperformance?
Yeah, um.
So if it's spending, that meansit's confident with trillions

(24:21):
of data and probabilisticforecasting, that it's confident
that they can convert customersat your target cpa or bid, um,
and so that's our thoughtprocess is like let meta
determine if it's on brand now,like we're not throwing the baby
out with the bathwater, right,if it's like this piece of
creative is no longer in stock,it's a sale driven content or

(24:42):
God forbid, it's like somethinglike brand negative in the
standpoint where it's likethey're dogging on you as a
brand or like.
But that's most of the timewhat people are not talking
about.
They're talking about you know.
I think, this is my subjectiveopinion is like this is on brand
or off brand?

Speaker 2 (25:00):
How do you get over that?
How do you help clients getover that?

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Uh, proof of I mean honestly, one proof of concept
with, like these are ads thatprobably 90% of people would
never launch that you knowachieved greater performance
than than what you're performing, or, uh, hoping for.
So do you want prettier?
Do you want performance?
Most people say performance.
Um, they do say they sayperformance, but then in
practice they want, like thepretty ads, to perform well.

(25:32):
Um, again, that's just thebeauty of running cost controls
is like we can just let it.
If it's spending, it's going toacquire customers.
But outside of just like bizstrategy and all that stuff,
yeah, I think that is a hurdlethat people need to get over and

(25:53):
like loosen their reins alittle bit.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
The reality is is like especially in an ai world
like and this is probablyanother tangent that we can go
on is the ugly ads are going tobe the thing that are going to
continue to drive your businessforward?
Yeah, because it's going to beharder and harder to tell what
is actually fake versus real,and so actually what is going to
be real is something that's notpolished, not cookie cutter,

(26:18):
not like professionally producedum what we mean by ugly ads,
just to let you guys know likethere are some that legitimately
look yeah, terrible yeah, butthere's also like more.
So what ugly ads mean, at leastto us, is that it just looks
native to the platform, like itlooks like it looks like you're
just consuming right it lookslike it's like what your friends
post, exactly like you're justconsuming it.
Looks like your friends put uson their stories.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
That's kind of like where native ad that's like an
old school term like nativeadvertising.
It would be like a newspaperarticle or something and it
would be like something thatlooked like a headline in a
newspaper, so it looked like youread it as if it was part of
the article and then you're like, oh wait, a second.
Delta Airlines is offering 50%off of flights to Cancun.
This has nothing to do with mymotocross magazine or whatever

(27:05):
you know.
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
I get that there are certain categories that have to
be a little bit more sensitiveto it.
Right, Like you obviously don'twant creative that's going to
lead the end customer to a wrongconclusion about your brand.
But again, we would say, let'sbe a little bit more looser than
what you may think, Causeyou're the one living in the
silo of your own brand everysingle day your customers are,

(27:28):
especially if you're, you know,have proper exclusions in place.
Most of these people arediscovering you for the first
time.
So it's like if they don't openyour box the right way, or if
they, you know, like some ad,okay, yeah, yeah we call it
marketing to marketers yeah,exactly that's the terminology,
it's like yeah most brand ownersand brand owners, sometimes

(27:50):
marketers.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, just by heart, right, if you, if you're
launching a brand, you have tobe like, you have to find ways
to get to attention, which ismarketing, and so like that kind
of has to be your number oneresponsibility.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
It's not necessarily creating the product and the
brand.
It's like I have to getattention on this, so like well,
the, the human tendency is toimpress your peer group.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
Sure, and that's what really.
That's what we're talking about.
Is brand owners all fall into atrap at some point, where they
start trying to impress brandowners, yeah, instead of trying
to impress their customers froma selling standpoint I get it.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
It's their baby.
They started the brand, sothat's like I put my kid in ugly
clothes on purpose, like it'sjust and like a very terrible.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
I mean I kind of do we're all parents and, like we
all, know what it's like to havea kid and you know, sometimes
parents will try to have theirkid do something that might make
the parent look better, but itdoesn't necessarily mean it's
the best thing for the kid mosttimes let's not turn this into a
therapy session most times,kids are an extension.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
We can talk about it after this.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
I'm a great friend therapist, if you guys need to
unload just go for it.
I'll listen, you know what.
Let's take a time out.
But seriously, right?
Yeah, parents will all try tolike you know, consciously or
subconsciously, like sometimes,like what you think is right for
your kid is really just youtrying to make yourself look

(29:20):
better.
Yeah right.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Also, clarification too most of the time 99 of the
time we're talking about this,these piece of ads it's not what
they're producing internally,because they already have a lot
of control over that yeah soit's like ugc, it's like
influencer content, it's whattheir customers are tagging them
in and they have sociallistening.
So it's like all the stuff thatthey don't have like in this

(29:42):
studio and cookie cutter controlover that they're so concerned
about Totally.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
And I would say the with with this thread of on
brand, off brand, is we get overit?
Usually not always, causeeveryone says they want
performance and then, of course,eventually they don't want
performance, they want it tolook a certain way.
Oh, but with with a brand.
Like everybody has differentsides of their personality.

(30:11):
You know, like no one's justlike one thing, but, like we all
like, if you have a friend,your friend is different in
different situations.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
And it's okay, it's not bad.
It's not bad that he's funnywhen you go out and he's like a
little bit more quiet whenyou're just like sitting on a
couch, right yeah, so like thepoint of an ad is to introduce
you to a brand, to make you stepinto the store, you know, as
like we talked about lastpodcast.
The next step is to get you like.
That's why seven day click isgreat, right?

(30:40):
If you're focusing on the click, it's hey, we're just focusing
on people who are actuallywanting to go in the store with
the intention of possibly buying.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Right, we don't want to focus on people who just saw
it and said that looks nice yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:55):
Right.
And so if your ad is drivingpeople into the store, and then
what you said is also key it'sdoes the ad build or does it
break trust?
So what's the expectation?

Speaker 1 (31:06):
like people aren't necessarily expecting everything
to look exactly the same,there's also a lot of
assumptions that brand ownermake, which is like you're going
to remember the ad that youclicked on well, I was just
about to bring this up we, so weI don't know if we ever told
you this, but so, cody, he metus through us actually pitching.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
We were pitching him, bestie, ai like hey, use our
post-purchase survey platform.
And when we first started wemight even pitch this to you we
thought we had the mostbrilliant idea and which, by the
way, no commerce ended uptaking from us, which was like
let's do create.
We called it creative recallwhere, like you would take the

(31:45):
top you might have in an adaccount, you might have a
hundred ads running, yeah, butat the end of the day, of those
hundred ads, half of them arejust like the same thing, but
with slight tweaks.
And then, of those, 80% of themare going to the budget.
Is going to what?

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Five or six of them, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
And so what would happen is we had the algorithm
that would put those ads in.
So when somebody selected, whenwe asked the question how did
you first hear about us, right?
And somebody said Facebook.
And then we had a followupquestion that said, was it an ad
, was it an influencer?
And they select an ad, we wouldsay we'd put creative recall in
.
That would say was it one ofthese ads?
And we were like dang dude, weare going to bring so much value

(32:27):
to creative agencies.
And you know it's going to put,you know, the big raindrops of
the world like in a spot to belike people need to work more
with us.
You know, and we would havelike a we'd have all the videos
but then we'd also have a just,a blanket, just statement.
So you'd have like thethumbnails of the videos and
then you'd have just a blanketstatement that said I can't
remember and it was like 90% ofanyone for any brand who used it

(32:50):
selected 90%.
And immediately we were like,oh, I guess it's a fun sell,
like it helps us sell theplatform a little bit.
Hey, if you want to do this.
But it never did anything forit you know, we're just.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
We're just exactly what you just said it's just a
lot of assumptions yeah, um well, just think about how many
freaking videos and postssomeone sees in a day oh my yeah
, hundreds, hundreds, like Imean the average person's online
, like eight hours a day.
Yeah, right Now there'sarguments like does it matter if
they saw three and they don'tremember?

(33:23):
And then they saw one they doremember, but ultimately, yeah,
like no one really remembers,like they could interact with
your brand four times and theymight not remember the quest is
just getting the attention.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
That's really it, and you nailed it right.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
If it's spending right, if it's attention
attention and inaction yeah,that's what.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's how I would define it for sure fair enough
for sure attention drives action, hopefully right action
repetition drives truth yeah,nice, truth drives sales give
yourselves more opportunities,not less yeah, more at bats wins
yeah yeah, I like it.
More shots on goal did you?

Speaker 3 (34:02):
we talked about this in another one.
Did you see that barry bondsinterview where he, like
mathematically, breaks down hisapproach to batting?
I think it's great formarketers because he he
essentially says, look like youhave.
I can't remember how big theactual box is, but it's like, is
it 18?
Inches yeah, the strike zone,what is it?

(34:22):
18 inches by I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
Two feet or something , baseball's boring in little
league.
It's really big.
That's what I'm basicallysaying.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
That's what I'm doing right now look, as a batter, I
know that they have to go intothis area and if all I'm
focusing on is winning againstone guy, like I can't control
everyone on the field, like Ican't fight 10 people at once,
but I can say, hey, this guy hasto go here.
So, no matter what the odds arein my favor over time, because

(34:54):
he has to eventually arrivewhere I am.
Yeah, and as marketers, I thinkthat's brilliant, because you
can't focus on everyone in themarket.
You have to focus on what yourcore persona is, or your
demographic.
Yeah, and, like you said, it'sat-bats Eventually.
It doesn't matter if they sawthe first ad and don't remember.

(35:15):
It's eventually, mathematicallythey're going to arrive where
you're hitting and the auctionis set up to do that for you.
So, like the more at bestyou're getting, and if you're
utilizing the auction because alot of people just don't
understand the auction at all,no, or just the, the implicit
supply demand curve of attentionwhich goes to what we were

(35:35):
talking about.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Point number one right, yeah, like low amur
target, yep and eventuallyyou're gonna get there.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
And if you can get there and you can get there for
a quote worst cost than yourcompetitors, like you're gonna
hit a lot more home runs you winyeah period, or if everyone's
focusing on like I gotta get atriple double on every time on
the bat, like you're probablystriking out all the time.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Those are two different sports analogies, but
I like what is it called a three, the cycle.

Speaker 3 (36:06):
What is it a triple?

Speaker 2 (36:08):
a triple like you get to the third base.
Yeah, that'd be triple runsbatted in.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Yeah, you're right, rbi.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
RBI.

Speaker 2 (36:17):
Double play, Double play yeah yeah, yeah.
Double play.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Triple double.
And then you get that rebound Ano-hitter, a no-hitter.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
A no-hitter gets you a triple-double.
A triple-double which will helpyou win the Stanley Cup.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, I was still thinking about John Stockton,
you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
Legend the pitch what's the next?

Speaker 2 (36:35):
what's the next hot take, I've got another um
attribution tools you love themzero zero value at best they
lead to slight confusion andzero value.
I don't know about zero I'mjust saying like it's low on the
totem pole well, yeah, I guesswhat you have to do is like do
you think there's any?

Speaker 3 (36:56):
added benefit if you are spending, I mean, if you're
let's just say you're like ahigh eight figure, nine figure,
brand Sure.
And you're spending across TVand other things.
Do you think there's valuethere?

Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, I just think most people probably listening
to this and also you're justlike you're in the upper
echelons, like if you're Ridgeor you know PexCloud guys, like
yeah, you got to be doing a lotof different things and you're
also spending on a lot of likedoing a Yankees partnership or
anybody listening to this.
Do not do that.
Like, or don't go pay GordonRamsey and like all these

(37:33):
different things.
Like there's just a lot of uh,I know people are inspired by
the nine ops podcast, but like,right, a lot of their advice and
they say that on the podcast.
They're very clear about that,yeah but, um, I would just say
like I would throw mm and mtatools like into that.
Like if you're a five milliondollar brand, I don't think you
should be paying for triple.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Well, like it's just it's leading to confusion, um
well, mainly also like there'san argument to make that, like,
if you're under 20 million, isthere any reason for you to be
on more than one or two channels.
Yeah, Take the words out of mymouth Right Like so so, so like

(38:12):
could I be spending five grand amonth on this tool?
To?
To give me the answer.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Well, when I increased when.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I increased meta 20%.
Did I see a rise or not in newcustomer acquisition?

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Right.
Mark's trying to put a littledevil's advocate in there.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
No, I agree with everything that's been said
actually.
We like some of the attributiontool, people as well.

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Yeah, I don't want to .
They're sponsoring this podcast.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
No, we're not, Just blame me.
We have no sponsors.

Speaker 1 (38:48):
Oh yeah, that's right Bestie.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
Incorrect BFF, right now BFF creative.
Oh, go check it out.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
BFF creative Right now.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
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(39:16):
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(39:40):
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Speaker 1 (39:46):
That's the ad read right there.
We are sponsoring.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
We can say whatever we want.

Speaker 3 (39:52):
But the other thing is the consideration cycle.
Right, Like I get it, theconsideration cycle is sort of
flawed.
Yeah, Because the considerationisn't necessarily the first
time someone hears about you,it's when they see, and then
they're actually okay.
I'm considering buying.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
And I think attribution becomes more flawed
the the why, the the smallerthat that actual consideration
cycle is, which for most brandsis not very long.
Right, like, if you get someoneto consider you to buy, you're
talking like seven to 28 days.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
That's where, like, you're not talking a year, like
no one's like more senseresearching you for when you're
paying for a 1500 quick wear set, like obviously you're not even
making that purchase within 28day, click yeah, most of the
time probably not right, it'sprobably like maybe a year yeah,
yeah we have.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
We have a client that sells like motorcycles yeah,
you know, five thousand dollarproducts like e-motorcycles, you
know, and their considerationwindow is six to twelve months.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
Yeah, in those spaces it starts to I would still bet
that meta is the mostincremental.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah, yeah now they're not making hundreds of
millions, I would still bet thatmeta is the most incremental.
Yeah, now they're not makinghundreds of millions, so we
would never introduce that.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
I think I have two problems.
One is In their situation.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
It's actually YouTube , but yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, when you start making decisions off of what
TripleL is selling you.
I think that's where I start tohave a little bit of a pause.
We just do this weird thingwith attribution tools, where
it's like we, for some reason, Ithink that they aren't
experiencing signal loss, andit's like the reality is like
they all have some sort ofsignal loss.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
And um so to overvalue that over like, the
only attribution that never liesis your bank account.
That's where it's like justback into Shopify, keep it
simple.
Um, this, it's like just backinto Shopify.

Speaker 3 (41:44):
Keep it simple.
Um, this is actually what'scoming in, cash in the door.
Yeah, what's so funny?
What he means by signal lossjust to define that is thank you
when you're.
When we're talking about, likepixels and did the digital world
, that's a signal right, like,hey, I have a signal of somebody
because the pickles, the pixels, tracking this person.
But a pixel tracking has gottenworse.
Yep and b.
There's tons of signals thathappen outside of the pixel.

(42:06):
So what you can capture in apixel is already limited to some
degree yeah and then you know,post ios, post ios exactly and
then after that, there's tons ofsignals happening that you just
have zero knowledge about orcontrol over aka somebody seeing
your product and saying, hey,where did you get that?

Speaker 2 (42:29):
yeah, perfect example , right, I mean?

Speaker 3 (42:31):
and there's tons of stuff online that you can't
control like they're.
The pixel isn't tracking everylittle step of somebody online.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
It just isn't one of one of my favorite podcast
episodes we've ever done isstill, to this date, the very
first podcast episode we did.
It's titled the marketingapocalypse, and we deem it as
mine.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
Yes besides yours, besides yours yeah, uh, my
favorite podcast episode of 2021yeah, yours was kind of when
everyone was freaking out about,like when iOS hit, oh yeah.
Yeah, and it was essentiallylike the— Overnight the ROAS
went down.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
The episode is all about how advanced we have come
with technology, yet how brokeneverything is right, where, like
.
At the end of the day, it'slike tools, even like, like.
We have one of these tools, bythe way.
We sell bestie AI Like that's atool that can potentially
complicate your business, andsometimes we overthink the idea

(43:33):
of what we tell people all thetime.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Like you should not be using.
You should not be using surveysfor attribution.
Like you should be usingsurveys to understand your
customer Totally.
Yeah, like attribution is likebe using surveys to understand
your customer totally yeah likeattribution is like I mean,
that's fine, you can like againit's.
It's fine to have a baseline,like it's fine to say hey oh,
where'd you first hear about usword of mouth?
Yeah right and if you see ahuge gap, like it's just delting

(43:55):
decision making off of it yeah,but you can't just be like
everything.
This is the true metric all thetime.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, but yeah, the whole podcast is literally about
just like hey, if you justeliminated every tool you used
besides the basics, I needShopify, I need meta, I need
Klaviyo, I need an SMS tool.
Anything else?
Google Analytics what about?

Speaker 3 (44:18):
Google sheets there's , I mean there's.
There's an argument that L of RSure like some kind of's.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
I mean there's a, there's an argument that Alavar
Sure Like some kind of pixel.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
I mean yeah, but but you know you get the point the
point that I'm trying to make islike I think it depends on the
complexity of the funnel.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
If you're a, brand under $20 million and you were
just had those like four or fivetools, would you simplify your
whole business?
And the answer is yes.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah.
So, Stop listening to podcasts?
Yeah, besides this one.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Well, go listen to Marketing Apocalypse, and then
you can stop listening.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
You never have to listen to us again.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
Us again.
I mean in fact, if you're stilllistening to us for that long,
thank you, but I can barelylisten to myself for that long.
Yeah, yeah, I like thatattribution.
I think that's a good take.
I like that attribution.
I think that's a good take.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Should we go one more ?
What's?

Speaker 2 (45:04):
one more good one you got one.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
No, I want to go back to what Cody said, though.
A lot about business is beingable to make sound decisions,
right?
So when we're talking about howdo you make a sound decision,
sometimes it's gut instincts too.
Not everything is data, butwhen you're doing digital
marketing, the reason why it'simportant to eliminate more

(45:31):
things to look at is because,again, you're adding additional
signals that will only createnoise in the way you're trying
to make a decision.
So, ultimately, the mostimportant thing, like you said,
is the bottom line, which is howmuch money are you making or
losing?
What's the profit?
Like that's all that reallymatters at the end of the day,
it's not what your ROAS is orwhat your conversion rate is,

(45:54):
although all those things canmatter, but it's again like I
always think about.
Like a car dashboard, right.
Like if you're racing a a car,like you're really paying
attention.
Like your rpms, right, yourgear and your speedometer.
Like you're not looking at theradio while you're racing.
And like messing around, likeyou're, you're very focused on a
very few things.
Focus is underrated and that'sall that really matters, like in

(46:16):
business.
So, like I love what cody said,because, as business owners and
even us as marketers.
Right, like a lot of timesthere's there's so much that
glitters, but it's not all gold,and so like you have to focus
on the gold which is your bottomline, and that's all that
matters.
When you move something, doesit move your bottom line or does
it not?

Speaker 2 (46:36):
what a line.
It's a good line glitters andgolds well, I know it's a song.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
What song is that I?

Speaker 2 (46:41):
thought it was just a phrase.
It is.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
I know it's a song.
What song is that?
I thought it was just a phrase.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
It is a phrase, but you just put it together.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
Well, it's from Led Zeppelin, yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Is that Led Zeppelin?

Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah, I just can't remember if it's Stairway to
Heaven.
I think it's Stairway to Heaven.
Maybe I can hear it in a song.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
I can hear it in a song Zeppelin.
Yeah, it is.
You're going to feel so stupidAt least the one I'm thinking.
Who feels stupid?
It's Smash Mouth.
It's the song on Shrek.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
Oh yeah, that one says it too yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
That's the one I'm thinking of.
At least it could be LedZeppelin.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Funny story about Smash.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
Mouth we like.
10 years ago we were out todinner at this like outdoor mall
area here in Utah and I heardAll Star being played but you
could tell it wasn't throughlike the speaker system.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
They were just live at a small concert.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Yes, they were just live.
It was Smash Mouth just thereand we were like what in
heaven's name, like nobody, likethis is what they resorted to,
and it was.
We ended up staying for thewhole concert.
It was awesome.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Well, it is Stairway to Heaven, but they imply it
it's not said exactly like that.
All that glitters is gold.
There's a lady who's sure allthat glitters is gold Only
shooting stars.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
I mean, I would add into what you're saying, Mark,
about making sure that those areconnected to the goals that you
guys have.
Are we lovingly up to the topline and bottom line goals that
you guys have over the next 12months?
Because otherwise, what are wedoing here?
So many brands that just don'thave?
that clear how should a businessset goals, though I would say

(48:20):
number one based on historicals,based on the current trajectory
of the brand.
How do we show improvement here?
I want to do 10, x.
Yeah, that that's where we comein and reset expectations, uh,
like in the forecast, veryconservative Like.
But I would just say, yeah,most people forecast top down
like black magic like.
Oh, I want to hit like kind oflike what?

Speaker 2 (48:40):
you said this is what I want.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah, this is like I want to do 100 million.
Let's just put in a spreadsheetthat sounds good.
They're just conjuring upexpectations yeah, I mean, like
all the forecasting to show youwhere you're off, not where
you're right, um, and so I thinkthat's where you want to
reconcile it each month and see,like, are you on track with
what you guys are doing?
But to exactly exactly yourpoint, like, is this doing what

(49:03):
I'm looking to achieve?
Ultimately, because some brandslike they want to ski 15 hours
a week and collect a cash cow,and some brands are looking to
get acquired within a year.
Right, it's like very different, very different goals, very
different goals, which leads tovery different targets, totally,
yeah, and very different spendlevels.
And so, just kind of like yougot to know where you're going

(49:24):
on a road trip, unless you'rejust driving yeah yeah, I think
the baseline of expectations islike you're looking for some
kind of growth year over year.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Right, yeah, but, like you said, we have this
conversation with brandssometimes and it's like, hey, I,
I'm stressed, I don't know if Iwant to do this.
It's like then, don't like, youdon't like, why, like?
Why are you trying to grow?
Yeah, you don't have to, yeahlike let's just be efficient,
like you can just be superefficient.
If you're happy with thisprofit number every month that's

(49:55):
going into your pocket and youwant to go ski 15 days a week,
like you said, or 15 days amonth no for sure.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I have brands in my mind right now that were former
clients or current clients thatare just like do this, like the?
I think a lot of brands fellinto the trap of 2020, 2021,
2022, even, and then startedseeing decline and then it was
like the comparisons of yearover year that like got them
into a really bad spot.
Sure, because it was like oh,I'm seeing this year over year

(50:24):
crazy growth and it's like thatwasn't real.
One and two, it's just likeyou're setting the wrong
expectations.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
Why wasn't it real, though?
Covid, I know, but what about?
Covid made that inflated.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
Everybody being online.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Well, you upended an entire shopping like shopping
behavior yeah, right like rightone.
When you go from being onlinelet's call it pre-covid five
hours a day to covid being 10hours a day.
Yeah, like well, it's kind ofit's.
Let's use peloton, for example.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
Yeah it's like does everybody start working out from
home?
Is that the norm?
No, no.
So you see, like stock and thenlike come back down to reality,
right, like yeah, just, itwasn't going to be like the
long-term thing well, not onlythat, but then can I another
thing to add to that that a lotof people forget.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
That happened was, uh , production got stopped.
Yeah, though, pos were paid.
Yeah right, nobody wasrefunding.
So what ended up happening wasstuff that should have been
there in over black friday ofcovid year didn't show up, so
but then it all showed up.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Everything got pushed inventory wise to 2021, right
and then what did they have todo?

Speaker 2 (51:38):
tons of brands had to discount all of this product
that was so delayed, that wasnot ready, like it wasn't.
Uh like, when you're orderingfor, for example, people buy
different apparel in Octoberthan they do in February, even
though the month temperaturescould be similar, right, but
people are buying swim inFebruary and they're buying

(52:00):
sweaters in October, and whenyou have a crap load of hoodies
and jeans or whatever, youthat's so hard, that's so
freaking hard to sell that kindof stuff in February, march,
april.
So what did all these brandshave?
They discounted it, and so theyhave these successful revenue
months.
Yeah, I would have never done amillion dollars in February.

(52:23):
That's a dead month for me.
Yeah you know, but I did amillion, so like that added also
to it.
Right?
It's like not only you had abunch of people online, but you
also has had these like Delugesof you, just a deluge.
I don't know those word nearthose above my pay grade a
deluge of Product coming in thatyou had to get rid of Utah work
quickly.
Also, people got free money,that's true.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
A deluge of product coming in that you had to get
rid of Utah work quickly.
The good Utah work Um.
Also, people got free money.
That's true.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah, very true.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
That's true, I mean every, everyone got free money.
So, and a lot of people weren'tlet go, like they thought, yeah
, so yeah, I just, I just wantedto raise this bubble.

Speaker 2 (53:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
But yeah, I just wanted to Curse this bubble,
yeah, but yeah, I'm glad webrought that up, because
expectations, like we alwaystalk about expectations of what
people used to have fromFacebook, of, like, 2016.
And it's like, yeah, yourorganic's just not there anymore
.
Man, sorry, it's just not.
You can't Like when yourorganic went from 80% of your
referral traffic and yourreferral traffic made up 70 of
your total site traffic to nowit's 15 10.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Well then, that also changes ad expectations pretty
dramatically for your growthwell, yeah, and then, covid, and
then your cac buying behaviorhas drastically changed over two
years yeah, I hate thatstatement of like I wish I spent
more money back then.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
I'm like you're gonna say that about this year so
true, same thing people will sayabout housing, right, oh, I
should have bought that.
Like, yeah, well, my dad, whocould have bought a?
House for 50 grand.
I'm sure like he like 50 grandwas a lot harder to do back then
, you know, but you think aboutit now and you're like oh my
gosh, I'd buy nine.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
You know there's all kinds of hot takes, tiktok.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
No, duh, there's all kinds of hot takes TikTok, no
duh.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Does TikTok advertising work?
Maybe Sometimes Are youunconvinced.
We just like if.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
I have one case of when it works.
No, just like not one brand,but one, Just not the best type
of scenario.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Type of scenario oh, okay.
When it's creator-led and thecreator has a big influence on
TikTok or when it's organic-led,meaning they have a really
awesome presence already there.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
And there's a price point too to this, for sure.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Under 50 bucks yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:36):
AOV like for sure under under 50 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, aov is that whatyou mean.
Definitely not bullish ontiktok, but I'm bullish on
organic content over therebecause if you can get it there
then generally you can see itwhen.
But?
But we had a client who she wasmassive audience on tiktok,
like massive audience, and thenhalf of the audience on on

(54:57):
Instagram, huge fitnessinfluencer, scaled incredibly
big and they thought the entiretime that, you know, in the
early stages they thought 90% oftheir budget was going to be
over on TikTok and it ended upbeing like 80, 20, like that 20%
did well, but like it was stillmeta.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Yeah, Still meta.
Is Google Still king On YouTube?
I mean Not always, but will befor the foreseeable future.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's hard to.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
I don't see a future there.
What about Google?
What about it Like?
Do I like the channel?

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Just what's your take on it?
Is it growth?
Does it?

Speaker 1 (55:38):
can you is it?

Speaker 3 (55:38):
incremental.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
Command capture Incremental?
No, I don't think so.
Oh, we've.
We've never seen it beincremental Like in terms of
comparison.
Yeah, I mean like most of thetime when we're running Google
too, and especially when weaudit it, it's just like a lot
of not hard exclusions in place.
Even on their brand.
They're hitting a very low rowas um yeah.

(56:02):
So, to be honest, we don't havea horse in the race, we just
view, like definitely bullish onmeta, but it's just because
what we see um, I think there'sonly one scenario where google
is incremental, but again, likeyou, it is demand capture.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
So, like you're always going to be confined to
what the traffic is, on Google.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
For what?

Speaker 3 (56:25):
it is.
It's always just problemsolution.
It tends to be something likethat's more niche yeah.
That's like it's solving aspecific problem that you're not
going to be able to like.
It's hard it's just harder toconvey that to a broad audience
because, like, your totalobtainable audience is actually
quite small, right in the schemeof things, but they're all
searching for like a solutionyeah, totally right.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
So like, for example, is like arthritis.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
Bedwetting right like .
It's going to be hard toadvertise bedwetting to a broad
audience.
Yeah, but there's peoplesearching for that all the time
and like, so you can beincremental to a point, so like,
but it's, yeah, you're notgoing to be able to generate
demand.
Yeah, yeah, youtube, thoughlike you can on YouTube, but

(57:11):
like YouTube is very dependenton your creative Applovin.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Big Applovin guy.
Oh yeah, Applovin Stop.
Huge Applovin guy over here.
We need to stop.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Applovin.
I'm not taking that oneseriously.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
I hear it's the best channel.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Yeah, your peers say it's the best channel ever.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
I bought all their stock.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Yeah, am I good.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
I don't know that should be the intro to the
episode Applovin I'm workingfrom my house.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Is it good?

Speaker 2 (57:41):
They paid us to say that.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
What do you think the future of agencies is?

Speaker 3 (57:46):
That's a really good question.
I think my hot take is Agencieswill always exist Because
people always want someone toblame.
It's actually one of the bestpoints I think you've ever
brought up about this wholeworld Because people always want
someone to blame.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
It's actually one of the best points I think you've
ever brought up about this wholeworld, because obviously
they're going to change big time.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Now how an agency operates is going to change
dramatically, right, butultimately, my big belief is, if
you're a brand owner, ai, sure,even as good as it's going to
get and look, I'm talking likewithin the next five years Maybe
I'm wrong, could be sooner, butyeah.
But Google has existed for 20years and you could Google
almost anything, but it's justlike one extra thing to deal

(58:28):
with, sure.
So I think agencies will alwaysexist.
Now, how they exist and howthey operate within an agency.
And how many of them exist andhow many of them exist, like
that's that'll change for sure,kind of what I was just saying
earlier so I think the future ofagencies is very much more
aligned with hey, like it's anintegrated partner into your
business, right?
They're bringing moreforecasting.

(58:49):
They're using ai to createbetter automations within their
system for creative.
You know, obviously ai willplay a huge part in all of this,
like the new google.
Was it the vision, api orvision?

Speaker 2 (59:02):
ai but their, their video generation yeah, is it
called vision or flow?

Speaker 3 (59:08):
I can't remember.
Yeah, I know you're talking,but it's.
They don't sponsor the pod.
It's crazy, like I mean yeah,now does that mean content
creation is gonna cease to exist?
No, because again you need realstuff.
But as an agency it's like dude, I can for sure I'm one year
away from being able to do stuffon my computer that looks 99 of

(59:32):
the way there that I that.
That just speeds the iterationup so you're not always waiting
in bottleneck.
So, like the free flow ofcreative, the free flow of ideas
will be very beneficial.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
I think the agencies will be able to uh, come to a
brand, for example, with a lotmore value in one place versus a
lot more value in having to goto five places.
You know, for example, everybrand needs product photography
for their website and I'm notsaying that product photography

(01:00:03):
is gone, but uh, but, but Icould.
I could easily say, hey, we nowoffer that we can do all of
that for you through 4-0 um, and, and, just like that we have it
all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Yeah, right um right, like the other day.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
The other day, I just created a model named ashley in
4.0 who is on, who can be onevery single one of our.
We have a jewelry brand andI've uploaded all of our pieces
of jewelry.
Yeah, and I think I've got 80of our product shots on a brand
new model that looks perfect.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
That looks organic too yeah, I think what you're
saying was like when theexecution gets commoditized, the
strategy becomes the thing yep,and that's what agencies?
Uh, if you're an agencylistening to this, that's what
you need to pivot towards hard,otherwise you're going to be
gone and kind of like similar toif you only run facebook ads or
if you only run email andyou're an email agency, you need

(01:00:56):
to pivot hard like it's or itjust needs to be like, your
strategic value needs to be 10x,because I just got pitched a
tool the other day that doeslike.
It made me think like well, wecan just add email to our agency
because we could just whitelabel your tool.
He was like 100.
So I'm like, okay, in thatworld, single channel agencies

(01:01:18):
die.
And also your strategy betterbe on point and you better be
entrenched to like the actualbusiness economics where does
sas?
Go same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
I think it's actually synonymous I, yeah, I think, uh
, yeah, I I don't.
I mean, obviously this is totalspeculation and and and.
Just caveat, we're not rootingfor anyone to lose their jobs
here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
We're not like rooting for people, because we
are in the line of fire of thattoo.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
But I do think I just don't see how software doesn't
go to zero, yeah, and so what Ido think, though, that agencies
can provide, is you can be astrategic partner on how to
implement AI, using AI to createthose one off tools that help
your, your client, right, so youcan have a technology partner

(01:02:07):
within the agency that isbasically the the orchestrator
of these AI models, or agents,to do these things right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
It's similar to the conversation with the
attribution.
It's like if I just give you abunch of tools but you don't
know how to use them, so all itis is kind of overwhelming.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
It's very synonymous with that conversation.
But, dude, I'm telling you thepoint of somebody always is
going to want to point a fingerat something, because if you let
ai do everything and you don'twin, which will happen?

Speaker 3 (01:02:40):
and that's not a jab at brands like that's just well
it's also how life worksagencies are cheaper yeah like
it's.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
It's just cheaper, it's faster um.
You're getting a breadth ofknowledge it's less risk.
Yeah, all the reasons.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Agencies, they're pros you have 20, you you've got
, you've got a group that hasinsights into 20 different
brands right, you know dependingon you know how big they are
and that just changes things.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Very good looking, men.
I also great company.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
I think great company you know we're fun people, so
we are fun people.
I think I've enjoyed thislittle episode.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
Carmelone if you're out there.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Yeah, well, I'm excited, trevor drags me on the
calls when clients want to talkabout like UFOs and conspiracy
theories.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
I'm excited that you're an Apple oven guy.
I love that about you.
Hey Apple oven guy, 80% of yourbudget is an Apple oven, right?
I have a sticker on my truckApple oven.

Speaker 1 (01:03:34):
Yeah, have you heard of it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
Apple oven for life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
You see apple oven, tell him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
I said hi.
All right brother, how manycandy crush.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
Grandmas are there to advertise to my
brother-in-law's, my mom's one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
My brother-in-law.
He's not grandma but he he'sgot to be on level like a
thousand in candy crush.
He's been playing New YorkTimes games.
Since I've been in the family,15 years Just crushing.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
I do want to hear from Apple Oven.
Though, Apple Oven, if you'relistening, we're just joking
around.
No, we're not.
But I have not seen you workfor any of our brands.
I'm not saying you don't work.
I just would love to see.
Talk about a one-hit wonder.
Yeah, I would just love to seewhat the actual it was like.
What we were talking about whenTikTok shots just went hot,
yeah, Everyone was talking abouthow great it was on Twitter,

(01:04:19):
right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
Like TikTok shots.
They had a longer run than NapLovin' though I will give them
credit.
They had like a six-monthheyday.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
That's true.
Because of subsidies but thatdid help and he would ask me
about it all the time and I'mlike I don't know.
Man, keep the main thing, themain thing, and the main thing
is meta.
I have a guy on that CrushedPaul.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
he has a weird last name but he runs an eyelash
makeup brush and six months butwe had him on our podcast.
The thing that actually helpedhim scale on TikTok shops was he
had been seeding heard thatterm somewhere TikTok creators
for years on, years on I thinkit comes from uh london lazarson

(01:04:59):
.
Yes, yes yes, yep, no, uh, yeah, so like there's so many things
that why he crushed, it's likehis product was already in the
wild.
He's already had relationshipwith the creators.
It's like if you're juststarting three months in to all
these subsidies, it's just youdidn't see the crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
TikTok shop still works and we probably need to
start ending the podcast.
But TikTok shops, this is along one, let's go three hours.
They were they.
It still works for lessexpensive.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
They were going to go politics after this Problem
solution.

Speaker 2 (01:05:29):
You know, yeah, problem solution Well low.
Aov like there was some.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
AOV, like there was some.
There was some like gimmickystuff to it too, like if you had
a fun product right, like afidget spinner type product that
those tended to do prettydecent.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
But if it was some gadget.
Eight years ago like gadgetscame out with yeah, like a laser
, like not literally fidgetspinners but you know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
I'm talking about like the gadgets, like things
that are like oh, one off,that's cool, I'll get it for now
, but no, it was never going tobe the main thing.
A golf ball that explodes whenyou hit it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:01):
Yeah, yes, for six weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
But going back to what Cody said, it's just focus.
Guys, there's a millionchannels out there and cool.
Do you want to go after all ofthem or do you just want to
focus on the one that's beenproven?

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
to be the best, everything that glitters is gold
.
Tldr, that's true.
Focus.
Hashtag smash mouth Chase thebottom line App loving In and
out TLDR yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
Chase the bottom line if that's your goal.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
That's the asterisk I would put on it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Yeah, I like it All right.
Kinship with a K.
No, it's kinship with a Y.
That's what I meant to say.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Yeah, sorry, I was like it's always with a K, but
Kinship with a Y.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
That's what I meant to say.
Thank you, dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Dot co.
You guys spell Dot co, kinshipdot co.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
We're dot co too.

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
Dot cos.

Speaker 1 (01:06:59):
They spelled kinship like Utah moms Kindly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Yeah, I hate that that was compared to.
I'm in your house, so I got tojust welcome Welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
All right brother it's good having you on.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
Thanks for having me.
All right, everybody.
We'll see you guys later.
Thank you so much for listeningto the unstoppable marketer
podcast.
Please go rate and subscribethe podcast, whether it's good
or bad.
We want to hear from youbecause we always want to make
this podcast better.
If you want to get in touchwith me or give me any direct
feedback, please go follow meand get in touch with me.

(01:07:23):
I am at the Trevor Crump onboth Instagram and TikTok.
Thank you, and we will see younext week.